So where are we?
Well as always there are multiple points of view. Deniers say exactly where we should be. The IPCC says somewhere just starting up the slow gentle climb.
Climate scientists seem to agree 0.8C higher than we were some years ago. Climate scientists also seem to agree we are actually at the start of something. The only disagreement seems to be what the something is.
A fairly full agreement seems to be reached that it isn't as warm as it should be. There isn't a lot of hope in that though because what seems to be keeping us cooler is a combination of a fairly weak sun and aerosol wastes we've pumped into the atmosphere.
I'm quite willing to be corrected but it seems this has reduced warming by around 0.4Watts per square metre.
Sounds good eh?
Well not really. Bar for these negatives we would be about 1.4C warmer and that's getting into the really noticable changes area.
The other we problem is that the sun is waking up again and we are working at reducing aerosols in the atmosphere. Seems kind of foolish you say. Well yes it does, although another wee problem is why there are so many mucky things up there. You see there is a chemical called Hydroxil in the atmosphere which seems to be a sort of supercleaner. It seems to mix with the muck up there and convert it into muck which can get washed out.
It is incredibly difficult to measure and work with as it doesn't last long and is or seems to be a bit in decline though one theory thinks that might be to do with slightly less ultra violet light just at the minute.
With the sun waking up that might stirr up the Hydroxil and reduce the aerosols, giving warming a mighty kick up the jacksy.
So not all wonderful on the stuff in the atmosphere stuff then. No I hear you say, we can't put that much into the atmosphere to affect things like that. It's huge and we're small.
Allow me to introduce Thomas Midgely. Never heard of him? No real surprise. He has the dubious honour of possibly being the most destructive human organism ever.
He was a chemist who had a couple of brilliant ideas. The first was to put lead into petrol to stop engines knocking. It worked but poisoned thousands many years later.
His other big idea might have killed off the species but for a stroke of luck, an old machine and a dedicated scientist.
Thomas Midgely invented Freon. The stuff that cooled fridges and air conditioners. The stuff that destroyed the ozone layer over Antartica. By luck and good science it was spotted and Freon was banned before we all were overdosed on ultra violet radiation.
And if you think that's old news, think again as the ozone hole still appears over the Antartic and now also over the Arctic.
The consensus at present seems to be that we are at the start of a potentially bumpy ride. The oceans are warming and expanding. The atmosphere is warming and average global temperatures are going up.
But we just had an incredibly cold winter in Europe.
Nice try but no cigar. One of the nasty effects of climate change is that extremes become more extreme.
Texas also had a very nasty hot period last summer with temperatures above 100F for more than 40 consecutive days.
South East England is heading into a drought, just declared because of two consecutive dry years.
lets finish off today with a bit of linguistics as it's one that wearies me immensely.
Lets stop talking about global warming and start talking about climate change because that's what it is.
Lets stop talking about skeptics. They are outright deniers and the veneer of the misuse of the word skeptic just gives them an attempt at setting themselves up as the moderate middle, which they are not.
By the way, to be clear and fair, I'm completely opposed to them and also have fixed views.
Lets stop patronising about the difference between climate and weather. Weather is what you get every day, climate is just lots of weather repeating itself.
Lets stop talking about "fixing" climate change. Some of you will know the story of Cnut and that's what fixing climate change is like
Lets stop talking about uncertain science. the only uncertainty is how bad it gets.
Finally and MOST IMPORTANTLY lets stop listening to governments leading in conjunction with business. They will only lead you to the next election.
We need in the words of Mother Theresa to do it ourselves, person to person.
Keep reading please and as always comments are welcome.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Lets solve Climate change part 2
where was I.
Oh yes 4 degrees Celsius.
Doesn't sound much does it? Might be quite pleasant to be 4 degrees warmer. Not as cold in winter, pleasant early spring, good summer. Wouldn't be too bad at all.
Except there's a wee price. France Italy and Spain would be deserts. Not all desert but enough to make it unlivable in the south. Oh and you can kiss North Africa goodbye.
Oh well, say American readers, that wouldn't really affect us. And you're right. You'd probably be too busy fighting for food because the grain belt all along the Great Plains would almost certainly dry up
And lets not forget over 1 BILLION people from India Bangladesh Pakistan Burma Vietnam etc etc who would be moving from dried up land.
Plus the wee problem of less land as sea levels would be up about 6 feet at least.
Scared yet? No? That's the upper limit of the IPCC speculation says you and isn't likely to happen.
Well yes that is in the upper limit of IPCC. The problem is IPCC is a document over which governments have control and if there is something they don't like they can have it removed.
Real climate scientists, who after all are the people who know, think it could be at least that and possibly much much worse.
The major problem is communication. Politicians are expert communicators. Most of them can fake complete honesty. Scientists are expert scientists. If you ask a scientist if there is any doubt in global warming theory he will say "Yes".
It's true. There is. How bad is it going to be? Exactly what will happen? That's the doubt in global warming theory. It's down to the world basically being chaotic especially the atmosphere which makes prediction and accurate measurements difficult and a well trained scientist will spend half a day making observations before he or she will admit it's raining. If they can't give you every exact detail, repeatable by experiment they'll tell you there is doubt.
I have actually heard a climate scientist admit that 3 weather events were down to climate change, which is most unusual. The only reason he admitted it was because all 3 events were beyond 3sigma.
Yeah, that's what I did as well. As I understand it that means that the chances of it not being connected to climate change were so remote as to make it probable they were connected. If that doesn't make sense, sorry it's the best I can do.
Politicians on the other hand, don't need stuff proved as long as they can make out you'll be better off with them. They can sound convincing without a clue what they're talking about and frankly take an extremely short view. The next election is a long time for them and in the meantime they have to make you feel warm and fuzzy so you'll vote for them again. They also have vested interests in big energy companies who either fund them or otherwise lovebomb them into seeing their short term profits as the most important issue.
Journalists in the mainstream generally report what they are handed by politicians so there is little wonder you may be a bit confused.
In part 3 I'll talk a bit more about where we are and where we could be heading. If I haven't scared you yet I might manage then.
In the meantime. please find out for yourself and PLEASE leave comments good or bad.
Oh yes 4 degrees Celsius.
Doesn't sound much does it? Might be quite pleasant to be 4 degrees warmer. Not as cold in winter, pleasant early spring, good summer. Wouldn't be too bad at all.
Except there's a wee price. France Italy and Spain would be deserts. Not all desert but enough to make it unlivable in the south. Oh and you can kiss North Africa goodbye.
Oh well, say American readers, that wouldn't really affect us. And you're right. You'd probably be too busy fighting for food because the grain belt all along the Great Plains would almost certainly dry up
And lets not forget over 1 BILLION people from India Bangladesh Pakistan Burma Vietnam etc etc who would be moving from dried up land.
Plus the wee problem of less land as sea levels would be up about 6 feet at least.
Scared yet? No? That's the upper limit of the IPCC speculation says you and isn't likely to happen.
Well yes that is in the upper limit of IPCC. The problem is IPCC is a document over which governments have control and if there is something they don't like they can have it removed.
Real climate scientists, who after all are the people who know, think it could be at least that and possibly much much worse.
The major problem is communication. Politicians are expert communicators. Most of them can fake complete honesty. Scientists are expert scientists. If you ask a scientist if there is any doubt in global warming theory he will say "Yes".
It's true. There is. How bad is it going to be? Exactly what will happen? That's the doubt in global warming theory. It's down to the world basically being chaotic especially the atmosphere which makes prediction and accurate measurements difficult and a well trained scientist will spend half a day making observations before he or she will admit it's raining. If they can't give you every exact detail, repeatable by experiment they'll tell you there is doubt.
I have actually heard a climate scientist admit that 3 weather events were down to climate change, which is most unusual. The only reason he admitted it was because all 3 events were beyond 3sigma.
Yeah, that's what I did as well. As I understand it that means that the chances of it not being connected to climate change were so remote as to make it probable they were connected. If that doesn't make sense, sorry it's the best I can do.
Politicians on the other hand, don't need stuff proved as long as they can make out you'll be better off with them. They can sound convincing without a clue what they're talking about and frankly take an extremely short view. The next election is a long time for them and in the meantime they have to make you feel warm and fuzzy so you'll vote for them again. They also have vested interests in big energy companies who either fund them or otherwise lovebomb them into seeing their short term profits as the most important issue.
Journalists in the mainstream generally report what they are handed by politicians so there is little wonder you may be a bit confused.
In part 3 I'll talk a bit more about where we are and where we could be heading. If I haven't scared you yet I might manage then.
In the meantime. please find out for yourself and PLEASE leave comments good or bad.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
lets solve climate change part 1
I’m a bit of a tweeter. I know but there you are. I saw a really scary tweet, innocuous enough on the surface but it began “ After climate change is solved”.
So what I hear you say. It was on Twitter to start with and anyway what’s wrong with the statement.
Well let’s start with some basics.
Climate change is real. It is happening and will happen. It has happened before many times.
Anybody who denies this is a creationist. If it hadn’t happened then ice ages didn’t happen.
Hope that clears things up and gets the crap out the way.
Some climate scientists think that this particular climate change is being caused or exasperated by man pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and some don’t.
Looks like the debate is still open and ongoing. Well yes. 97% think man has something to do with it and 3% don’t. I suppose you could say the debate is still on going, sort of.
Of that 3% I have little doubt that some nay say because their bosses tell them to. Money talks. I have equally little doubt some say no because if you said white they’d say black. I also think some say no because they aren’t getting notoriety in following the consensus. Never doubt the strength of the human ego.
Within the 97% there is still some debate. The 2 main topics are
1 how much is us
2 how bad is it going to get.
There has been overall a warming of 0.8C CO2 has risen to 393ppm from a pre industrial level of 280ppm. Methane and Nitrous Oxide levels have also risen a little.
Eh? Is that it? What’s all the fuss about?
Well, CO2 levels during the last ice age were about 180ppm and the rise to 280ppm took us to the present climate. That’s right a 100ppm rise is the difference between growing plants to eat and 2 miles of ice where I live.
We’ve added 113ppm by burning fossil fuels mainly. Coal Oil and Gas. Basically carbon stored in the earth which we’ve dug up or drilled and are transferring to the atmosphere as fast as our little egos’ can come up with the means.
It gets better. We’re increasing the amount we pump up by roughly 3% per year. That’s 3% of the previous years total more every year.
We KNOW ( see above) that this is increasing CO2 in the atmosphere but we STILL increase year on year. Frankly that borders on idiocy.
Climate scientists studying this say that that figure looks likely to continue for a while yet. Intergovernmental agreements say they’ll address it but the target date keeps moving, currently to around 2050.
In other words every target is to be met beyond the franchise of current administrations.
The why on this is easy. To reduce emissions means to reduce the ability to make money in our oil dependant economy.
But wait a minute, say some. I don’t have a car, use public transport and shop locally on my bike. Well sorry but even the tyres on your bike have oil input.
To do anything is painful. Politicians don’t want to be blamed for giving the bad news never mind imposing the painful cuts.
That still doesn’t answer the question of how much is us. Ask a scientist. They’ll tell you they don’t know. That’s actually true. It’s incredibly difficult in an extremely complex system to portion out blame for events.. A scientist won’t commit to this because it can’t be backed up by quantifiable repeatable evidence. Fortunately I’m not a scientist so can give an opinion. 90% us.
How bad is it going to get? Well we could achieve the incredible and be the first species to cause our own extinction. That’s actually not an exaggeration..
The IPCC report in 2007 gives a relatively benign assessment of a 2-4 degree warming implied as a steady gentle increase. Not too bad. Problems only occur when you look at the process for producing that report. Politicians had line by line approval. That means every word had to be approved by every government. In other words a camel, defined as a horse designed by a committee.
Every vested interest you could think of and a few you couldn’t chucked their tuppenceworth in to it to achieve “consensus”.
When you read and here the climate scientists in their own words the future doesn’t look too bright. If the climate warms slowly and gently giving lots of adaption time, it will be the first time ever. All the accumulated evidence from the past is it changes suddenly violently and brutally, sometimes in a couple of years.
4 degrees of warming is certainly not survivable at current population and lifestyle.
Please have a think about that until part 2.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Journalistic prostitution and the death of honesty
Just a little wild writing this as I've just seen Prime Minister Cameron misquoted on the BBC news. It will surprise many of you that I'm upset by that but the truth is it paints a distorted and untrue picture of what he actually said and that is plain wrong.
He has said that he is open to consider, in the event of a NO vote in the Scottish Referendum, the option of giving thought to more powers to the devolved parliament.
Pretty straight forward. Non committal, sounds fair and very statesman like, saying something without committing to it.
Reported as Cameron offers more power if people vote no.
See why I'm annoyed?
Unfortunately this is an all too common occurrence and not just with the BBC or English Broadcasting Corporation as I think it really is. I go back to just a few years ago when the BBC was the source of accurate factual unbiased news. Alas no more. Only C4 offers that in the UK or RT and France24 for foreign. At least Fox is honest in its' bias, and I never thought I would say that.
During WW2 the BBC was the voice of hope in occupied Europe. My wifes family lived through it in Belgium and they told me this so its not some urban myth.
Now I look at the EBC flagship in Scotland, Reporting Glasgow, and think is this really the best the country of Adam Smith Charles Rennie Mackintosh and countless others can produce?
There has been no mention I've seen on TV news or indeed in print of the disgraceful goings on in USA where there is a blatant sexist and frankly revolting move to subjugate women to forced vaginal intrusions. I have no idea why these sad old men feel the need to do this and no idea what they hope to gain apart from complete subjugation of women. There has been even less reported of the stupid cow on Fox news who said that women in the armed forces should accept being raped as a hazard of the job or some such.
Failure to report this sort of thing removes knowledge from the population and removes the chance to organise a proper campaign to prevent such abuses.
The fact that this is happening in the supposed Land Of the Free makes it even more unpalatable and even more important to report on.
I saw tweet today which suggested that the TV bosses weren't showing us much of Greece in case we got ideas. What else are they not showing us and by the Lord Harry I'm starting to get ideas.
He has said that he is open to consider, in the event of a NO vote in the Scottish Referendum, the option of giving thought to more powers to the devolved parliament.
Pretty straight forward. Non committal, sounds fair and very statesman like, saying something without committing to it.
Reported as Cameron offers more power if people vote no.
See why I'm annoyed?
Unfortunately this is an all too common occurrence and not just with the BBC or English Broadcasting Corporation as I think it really is. I go back to just a few years ago when the BBC was the source of accurate factual unbiased news. Alas no more. Only C4 offers that in the UK or RT and France24 for foreign. At least Fox is honest in its' bias, and I never thought I would say that.
During WW2 the BBC was the voice of hope in occupied Europe. My wifes family lived through it in Belgium and they told me this so its not some urban myth.
Now I look at the EBC flagship in Scotland, Reporting Glasgow, and think is this really the best the country of Adam Smith Charles Rennie Mackintosh and countless others can produce?
There has been no mention I've seen on TV news or indeed in print of the disgraceful goings on in USA where there is a blatant sexist and frankly revolting move to subjugate women to forced vaginal intrusions. I have no idea why these sad old men feel the need to do this and no idea what they hope to gain apart from complete subjugation of women. There has been even less reported of the stupid cow on Fox news who said that women in the armed forces should accept being raped as a hazard of the job or some such.
Failure to report this sort of thing removes knowledge from the population and removes the chance to organise a proper campaign to prevent such abuses.
The fact that this is happening in the supposed Land Of the Free makes it even more unpalatable and even more important to report on.
I saw tweet today which suggested that the TV bosses weren't showing us much of Greece in case we got ideas. What else are they not showing us and by the Lord Harry I'm starting to get ideas.
Monday, February 13, 2012
God and the Anthropocene
One of the drawbacks of suddenly having time on your hands in what is a busy life is that you tend to think.
Not all, possibly any, of your thoughts are any good, indeed cogent or even rational thought is a difficult time consuming and thankless effort.
Time I have had though and thoughts appear.
Apparently they are proposing to release GM mosquitoes in Florida to combat the upsurge in Dengue Fever. These beasties have a suicide gene which means they die if the don't get a certain chemical and will pass this on to their offspring.
It sounds brilliantly simple. Less Mozzies, Less Dengue. What could possibly go wrong?
I live in a country where two positives can make a negative. Aye Right!
Lets start with the understanding of complex systems. Big fleas have littler fleas upon their backs to bite them. Do we understand the full ecosystem that could be affected here? What would be the effect on smaller organisms seeking a new host? Is it possible there is a substance sufficiently similar to the required chemical to fill the gap?
If anyone answers other than "We don't know" to at least 2 of those questions then they are blatant liars.
Bill Gates et al are apparently proposing geoengineering to overcome the climate change problem.
We can't even agree there is a problem, never mind have the hubris to think we can fix it with technology, is the first and starting issue.
If we ever agree there is a problem we then look at the fixes and have to consider the career of Thomas Midgely. Lead in petrol was an awfy good idea in the 1930's. Freon would change the human race.
Yep they did by causing the Ozone holes we are now affected by.
Science is so fascinating and can do so much good it is a great pity it is rapidly becoming the new religion. While great strides have been made we still have so many unknown unknowns. Humans tend to look for definitive answers. If God didn't do it Science will. Not the best maxim on which to gamble the only planet we have.
We do have a simpler way of starting to combat climate change. Use less.
Unfortunately this interferes with 3 holidays a year, new this and that, and most importantly of all consumerism. It is much easier to expect a Deus ex machina to just wave a wand and make it all go away, than suffer the least inconvenience in our lives.
Something to think about if you have the time.
Not all, possibly any, of your thoughts are any good, indeed cogent or even rational thought is a difficult time consuming and thankless effort.
Time I have had though and thoughts appear.
Apparently they are proposing to release GM mosquitoes in Florida to combat the upsurge in Dengue Fever. These beasties have a suicide gene which means they die if the don't get a certain chemical and will pass this on to their offspring.
It sounds brilliantly simple. Less Mozzies, Less Dengue. What could possibly go wrong?
I live in a country where two positives can make a negative. Aye Right!
Lets start with the understanding of complex systems. Big fleas have littler fleas upon their backs to bite them. Do we understand the full ecosystem that could be affected here? What would be the effect on smaller organisms seeking a new host? Is it possible there is a substance sufficiently similar to the required chemical to fill the gap?
If anyone answers other than "We don't know" to at least 2 of those questions then they are blatant liars.
Bill Gates et al are apparently proposing geoengineering to overcome the climate change problem.
We can't even agree there is a problem, never mind have the hubris to think we can fix it with technology, is the first and starting issue.
If we ever agree there is a problem we then look at the fixes and have to consider the career of Thomas Midgely. Lead in petrol was an awfy good idea in the 1930's. Freon would change the human race.
Yep they did by causing the Ozone holes we are now affected by.
Science is so fascinating and can do so much good it is a great pity it is rapidly becoming the new religion. While great strides have been made we still have so many unknown unknowns. Humans tend to look for definitive answers. If God didn't do it Science will. Not the best maxim on which to gamble the only planet we have.
We do have a simpler way of starting to combat climate change. Use less.
Unfortunately this interferes with 3 holidays a year, new this and that, and most importantly of all consumerism. It is much easier to expect a Deus ex machina to just wave a wand and make it all go away, than suffer the least inconvenience in our lives.
Something to think about if you have the time.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Twitter, health and fantasy politics
Ok so it's a while since the last post and yes I've spent an inordinate amount of time on Twitter but it is surprisingly educational.
I had no idea there were so many tosspots in the world.
You tend to judge the world on the basis of your own life experiences and yes I'd met plenty arseholes but had never really quizzed many on their beliefs. Twitter lets you do that and some of them are scary in the extreme!!
Regular readers, if such exist ( no feedback ever posted hint), will be aware I tend to the Type II climate change end of the debate, sudden abrupt and violent. I base this on my reading and trying to understand a complex and emotive subject. . Really the only point I dare to disagree with James Lovelock on is nuclear power. I don't think we've explored the small but many option using existing and available technology. All we need to do is make it cheaper and more accessible. Imagine a mini hydro generator every 20 yards along the Thames as one example.
What has shocked me is that there are still so many pig ignorant opinionated plonkers out there who patently haven't even read the literature available, or if they have, didn't understand it.
http://www.mcall.com/opinion/yourview/mc-global-warming-textbook-point-eichfeld-20120211,0,3869884.story
Point proved to be honest
Moving on on a similar vein. Contraception. Wish I could find the link but I saw a report last year from the UN saying the best thing, proven, to help world hunger, poverty and climate is to educate women and empower them to control their on child bearing. Apart from stating the obvious, wouldn't it be nice, just for once to treat every member of the human race as an equal. If someone can show me in the Bible, All Versions please translated from the ORIGINAL Aramaic and not washed through Hebrew Greek and Latin and not doctored at Nicea ( if you don't like it go and fucking look it up) where it says a woman is inferior to a man then I'll publicly apologise in any manner chosen.
Ditto Gays Buddhist anyone not the same skin colour etc etc etc.
Until then racist homophobes and assorted other arseholes, please please don't try to educate your kids, don't spout forth, don't demand. Just piss off and learn something.
You might find opening your mind painful but not as painful as we currently find you.
Finally, if you like Celtic music please think on a couple of podcasts I recently found. Grinningbeggar and Marc Gunn. I think they're great!!
I had no idea there were so many tosspots in the world.
You tend to judge the world on the basis of your own life experiences and yes I'd met plenty arseholes but had never really quizzed many on their beliefs. Twitter lets you do that and some of them are scary in the extreme!!
Regular readers, if such exist ( no feedback ever posted hint), will be aware I tend to the Type II climate change end of the debate, sudden abrupt and violent. I base this on my reading and trying to understand a complex and emotive subject. . Really the only point I dare to disagree with James Lovelock on is nuclear power. I don't think we've explored the small but many option using existing and available technology. All we need to do is make it cheaper and more accessible. Imagine a mini hydro generator every 20 yards along the Thames as one example.
What has shocked me is that there are still so many pig ignorant opinionated plonkers out there who patently haven't even read the literature available, or if they have, didn't understand it.
http://www.mcall.com/opinion/yourview/mc-global-warming-textbook-point-eichfeld-20120211,0,3869884.story
Point proved to be honest
Moving on on a similar vein. Contraception. Wish I could find the link but I saw a report last year from the UN saying the best thing, proven, to help world hunger, poverty and climate is to educate women and empower them to control their on child bearing. Apart from stating the obvious, wouldn't it be nice, just for once to treat every member of the human race as an equal. If someone can show me in the Bible, All Versions please translated from the ORIGINAL Aramaic and not washed through Hebrew Greek and Latin and not doctored at Nicea ( if you don't like it go and fucking look it up) where it says a woman is inferior to a man then I'll publicly apologise in any manner chosen.
Ditto Gays Buddhist anyone not the same skin colour etc etc etc.
Until then racist homophobes and assorted other arseholes, please please don't try to educate your kids, don't spout forth, don't demand. Just piss off and learn something.
You might find opening your mind painful but not as painful as we currently find you.
Finally, if you like Celtic music please think on a couple of podcasts I recently found. Grinningbeggar and Marc Gunn. I think they're great!!
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